


enough for you

by smileymikey



Category: SKAM (Norway)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Eating Disorders, F/F, Internalized Homophobia, Lesbian Vilde, M/M, ft vilde loving herself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:47:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26547742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smileymikey/pseuds/smileymikey
Summary: Vilde is sixteen, and she has fallen in love for the first time.or, Vilde observes five relationships. 5+1.
Relationships: Eva Kviig Mohn/Noora Amalie Sætre, Even Bech Næsheim/Isak Valtersen, Magnus Fossbakken/Vilde Lien Hellerud
Comments: 13
Kudos: 77





	enough for you

**Author's Note:**

> title from 'enough for you' by maisie peters
> 
> found this one in my drafts, hope u enjoy :-]

  1. **Vilde and William**



Vilde is sixteen, and she has fallen in love for the first time.

It is with the hottest, coolest boy in all of Nissen and she has never felt more special. He is like a handsome knight out of the storybooks, who swoops in to rescue her out of her tower. And... granted, it doesn’t happen _exactly_ like that, not the way she’s been imagining, but William’s never been one for clichés, anyway. It wasn’t really very fair of her to have expected that from him. He would never be so frivolous as to wear his emotions on his sleeve.

Besides, it’s not like what does happen isn’t wonderful. She gets her first tantalising taste at the Penetrator party, the one she has worked hard to get her bus into – _you’re doing a good job, Vilde!_ she tells herself – before Sana ruins it, but that was probably for the best, anyway, that they left early. Vilde knows boys like the chase, she thinks she read that in a book somewhere. And she wouldn’t want to come off as desperate, dear God. William definitely wouldn’t like desperate girls.

She is keeping him waiting. She is careful about this.

When Williams asks to meet up during an evening, Vilde’s heart is full of flutters, because she knows what this means. She’s going to have sex for the first time. Her stomach is in knots like it is when she’s anxious or excited and she keeps feeling like she has to pee, like the feeling she’d get whenever she would do the running race in school and she’d suddenly get nervous at the starting line. She does a pregame with the girls and it helps a little, having the alcohol in her, but she is still a bit nervous. What if she isn’t good at sex? What if she doesn’t orgasm? Does she pretend? Will William mind the little fold of her stomach? What underwear should she wear?

They end up doing it in his room, in his bed, and they don’t end up using any of the condoms Dr Skrulle gave her but William told her it was fine, he didn’t like them anyway, and she agrees because he’s more experienced and she doesn’t want to look pedantic. He holds her hands and strokes the hair out of her eyes and tells her that she looks nice and she finally has her orgasm.

It’s fine. But she’d sort of expected... more.

Still, Vilde tells herself, no one’s first time is perfect. And William was the perfect gentleman. He even complimented her on her underwear, which she’d tried so desperately to match, even though they’re not a set so her pants are a bit redder than her bra, which is technically pink. She’s just being ungrateful. She’s _lucky_ she got to do it with a boy like William.

So when the girls ask her about it the next day, she tells them it was the best night of her life.

*

Vilde expects things to change between her and William, after that.

After hearing so much about how special her first time is supposed to be, she thinks she just set her standards too high and expected too much, which wasn’t fair of her. It was probably very good – better than good, _perfect_ , even, because it was with William, the coolest boy in all of school. She start seeking him out now in the hallways, with intention: because surely he felt it too, didn’t he? And having the coolest boy in school as her boyfriend would surely do a lot for her social standing. She and the girls would get to party on the Penetrator bus _and_ the other girls would be flocking to join their russ bus like moth to flame, and Vilde would get to look at all the Pepsi Max girls in their pretty perfect faces and tell them no, just like they did to her, and they can see just how much they like it.

Or, they would, if William would only _look_ at her.

Vilde tries to let it just glance off her, cool and collected, like Noora, or Sana. She knows what he’s doing. He’s playing hard to get, that’s what all the boys do. She read it in a book somewhere. Just because he’s not acknowledging her in the halls with even a smile means nothing except he obviously likes her so much.

Though... Penetrator Chris smiles at Eva, a lot. But that’s surely not the same. Penetrator Chris is sleazy, of course he smiles at all the girls. William is classier than that. It’s why he so reserved.

Of course it is.

*

_I don’t view you as a trophy because you’re simply not pretty enough._

*

She is fine.

Really.

She will just have to make herself better.

*

Vilde has always been careful about what she eats. It’s not an eating disorder, she’s not anorexic, William wouldn’t like girls who are skeletons, but she knows he likes slimmer, svelte girls, girls like Noora, and she’s just... adjusting to that. It’s no different from that one time Eva told her she thought she looked pretty in her pink sweater so Vilde started wearing it more often. It’s adapting to an environment, that’s how species survive natural selection. Vilde’s sure she read a book about that.

It’s helpful, too, because her mum’s benefits only cover so much, so it’s good that Vilde’s not getting as many groceries. She stops buying cereal because she read an article that skipping breakfast is meant to be really good for your metabolism and she makes sure to drink lots and lots of water, because that clears your skin, and Noora has perfect skin. She also starts jogging and only eating at certain hours, and never before bed, because you can’t burn those calories off, and if she’s going to make herself good enough for William, more like Noora, she can’t let them add up. Vilde eats salads for lunch, which gradually just turn into a single apple, which eventually turns into nothing because she’s figured if she chews enough gum then she doesn’t even feel very hungry, and dinners are pasta, most nights, the kind you make from a box that has powdered seasoning in little plastic packets, but she throws those out because she’s sure those are filled with calories too, plus all sorts of other things.

She can see it work. The non-stop exercise has made her firmer, if she pushes down on her stomach it only gives a little before it hits muscle, but there are moments she is just so, so hungry she would kill for a burger, or a chocolate shake, or pancakes, oh God, _pancakes_.

Watching Noora eat just feels like a slap in the face, how _she’s_ able to eat burgers and chocolate shakes and pancakes and still be all skinny, but this is okay. William will realise how devoted Vilde is when he sees how hard she’s working to make her body the way he wants it, and then it’ll be worth it.

 _She_ will be worth it.

*

Vilde is at the Riot Club benefit party and Penetrator Chris is by her side, leaning in a little too close, and she has a cup of alcohol in one hand and the edge of counter in the other. Penetrator Chris is handsome but he is not as handsome as William, who she imagines the knights around the round table to have looked like – strong and good-looking and brave – but he is handsome enough, and these days any boy who will give her the time of day works, so she lets him lean in close, put his lips against her ear. “The winner of the hook-up action is...” he says, and then nothing more, so she says, “Who? I can’t hear you” because he’s talking too quietly, and she’s not going deaf too, is she? That’s not very attractive. William probably doesn’t like deaf girls.

Chris just laughs, and he is close enough for her to feel it as well as hear it, hot breath against the side of her face, a little too loud because he’s a little too close, like when you speak too loudly in a microphone and it whites out after a certain volume. She sort of flinches away, but that’s just an instinct, Chris is handsome and here and a decent enough surrogate for William, so she lets herself go closer again, say, “I can’t hear you” and then he says again, “well, it’s—”

She doesn’t hear him again, but this time it’s because then Noora is there, pretty, skinny Noora with her nice hair and nice face and nice eyes, blue instead of boring brown, but Vilde has blue eyes too so that’s okay, William probably doesn’t go for girls with boring brown eyes, and Noora has Eva in her arms and deposits her into Vilde’s. Eva is very drunk, Vilde thinks she should tell her that maybe she should slow down on that, she doesn’t want her becoming an alcoholic, William wouldn’t think it’s very attractive to have an alcoholic friend, and practically falls against her.

“Noora!” Vilde says, quite indignantly, because she was talking to Chris. She ignores the tiny seed in the back of her mind that is grateful from the distance she has from him now.

“She’s drunk,” Noora says. “Can she just stay with you?”

“No!” Vilde says, but Noora has disappeared into the crowd, and she is left with Eva in her arms, drunk and giggling and unable to stand, so she is holding onto her shoulders and looking at her in the eyes, and Vilde looks in hers back and she has blue eyes, too, and they’re actually quite pretty, and then suddenly they’re getting closer and closer as she leans in and says, “Do you want to kiss me?”

Vilde’s heart does something sort of peculiar in her chest – she’ll need to check that out, hopefully it’s nothing serious, William probably wouldn’t like girls with heart conditions that make them feel like the floor has been swept out beneath them – and she pushes sort of helplessly against Eva’s shoulders because she’s getting really close now and Vilde doesn’t know what’s happening but then Eva’s pushing back and then their mouths are pressed together and Vilde feels like she can’t breathe.

Thing is, she has thought about what kissing Eva would be like. Of course she has, everyone has. That’s what friends do. Well, she hasn’t thought about kissing Chris, though she thinks Chris would be quite a good kisser, actually, she has nice lips, and Sana isn’t allowed to kiss so Vilde hasn’t thought about that, either, though Sana’s also very pretty, she just needs to stop wearing such dark makeup, Vilde should maybe lend her some of her things, like her peachy blushes and candy-pink lipsticks, and Noora is very pretty so obviously she’s thought about that, but Eva—

Well, Eva is somehow everything and nothing she expected all at the same time.

Vilde’s only ever kissed boys before – like William – and he was blocky and straight up and down in her arms, and she put her hands on his broad shoulders because that’s where girls put them in the movies and she wasn’t tall enough to put them around his neck, but Eva is smaller and curvy, and Vilde has always thought that girls’ bodies were much better when it came to kissing because she thinks they were sort of made with kissing in mind, like their nice mouths and the dip in their waists where she can fit her hands. Eva tastes of alcohol and strawberry chapstick, the one she borrowed off her, and her long hair is tickling Vilde’s face, and her body against hers actually feels really nice, like a hug.

And then Eva’s pulling away, far too soon, and she’s slurring out something like needing to throw up and Vilde doesn’t have time to think that she has just kissed a girl and that she’s pretty sure Penetrator Chris watched the entire thing because she needs to help her, so she drags her out of the club and to the bridge, and holds her hair back as she throws up into the river.

Vilde tucks her hair behind her ears and rubs her back as Eva throws up, and she wonders what William would think, if he saw her like this, because she thinks William would like girls who are good to their friends, and surely he’d know that Vilde would never get as sloppy as Eva does. Though Eva is sort of sweet when she’s this drunk, so maybe he’d think Vilde was cute, maybe he’d tuck her hair back like she’s doing to Eva.

Then, like a miracle, William is suddenly here, he is walking across the bridge, head down, and Vilde wants to call after him but then decides against it because William probably doesn’t like girls who are desperate: he’ll turn around, she decides, and see her naturally, she is planning it out in her head, and then—

Well.

And then.

*

Of course he would go for someone like Noora.

Perfect, beautiful, skinny Noora. Noora, who is probably good at kissing, good at sex, who has shiny blond hair and big blue eyes and speaks Spanish.

Who wouldn’t go for Noora?

*

Noora tells her, weeks later.

Vilde knew all along, of course, ever since she saw them kiss at the Penetrator party when she first kissed Eva, but she doesn’t know how to feel, hearing it come from Noora herself. Something in her is a little stung, of course: but not in the deep aching way she’d expected, the way Eva said breaking up with Jonas had been. Instead, she finds that she is almost... relieved.

She has known for a while that William was never hers. She thinks that maybe she always did, even from that very first time in his room under the Pulp Fiction poster when he held her hand and didn’t say anything about the size of her thighs or tummy, when he told her that he didn’t like condoms because they didn’t feel good. It has been crystallising over time, becoming clearer and clearer, though she had stoutly been ignoring it, because she was working hard for him, the entire reason she went on this stupid diet and doing all this exercise all along has been for _him_. But Noora in front of her, with her wide, hesitant gaze, has broken down any element of a façade, and suddenly she can see it very, very clear.

For months, William was been like a smoke bomb, clouding her senses, making her all muddled. She thought she was in love with him, and maybe she was, but not any longer.

She remembers what Noora said to her all those months ago about him, and she has to ask. “All those times you said William was a selfish asshole who wasn’t good enough for me. Do you think he’s good enough for you?”

And Noora. Noora says, softly, “I don’t know.”

*

  1. **Noora and William**



When Noora starts dating William, Vilde doesn’t see a lot of her.

Admittedly, this may be because of Vilde’s strict workout regiment, which she has still kept up, because while she is still no longer in love with William it is important to keep in shape for when she next falls in love, maybe with someone who _will_ mind that her underwear doesn’t match and there is a little fold in her tummy when she sits up. But both Noora and William have always been quite intensely private about things, and so they keep themselves tucked away in William’s shiny apartment, probably having lots of sex and being beautiful.

Still, whenever Vilde does see them, on the rare occasion they emerge, there always feels something a little... hesitant about it. She thinks maybe Noora is just nervous about acting coupley with William in front of her: which of course she shouldn’t be, Vilde has moved on. But Noora always looks like she is full of longing, like there is something faraway in her eyes.

Months ago, Vilde would have thought this ridiculous. What possibly is there to long for other than William, especially when you have him? How ungrateful can you be?

But she no longer wears her rose-tinted glasses around him, and with some distance, and time, she realises that she was the same. When they’d had sex, and he fell asleep next to her, and she stared up at his ceiling and wondered whether it was considered normal to stay for breakfast, and how she’d quite appreciate it because there wasn’t any food at home, she hadn’t had the revelation Chris and Eva said that a first time brought about.

She wonders why that is: decides it’s probably just a William issue. Everyone probably lied about how good he was in bed, if he couldn’t satisfy her _or_ Noora.

So, it’s safe to say that when she announces that she is moving to London with him – as in, _London_ , _England_ , London – Vilde is more than a little taken aback.

“London!” Eva repeats incredulously, when Noora goes to the toilet. “What on earth is so special in _London_?”

“William, apparently,” Sana says, distaste evident. She has never liked him. Vilde and Sana have butted heads a lot but one thing Vilde is starting to agree with her on that is that much, at least. “I think she’s lost her mind. How long have they been dating? A month? Less? And she wants to give up her whole education for him?”

“They had that whole will-they-won’t-they for a while,” Chris offers.

Sana sniffs contemptuously. “They’re far too young. It won’t work out.”

She is probably going to go on another William tirade, but then Noora comes back from the toilet. “What are we talking about?” she says as she sits down across from them. Chris jams her spoon in her mouth and looks down at her yoghurt, and Sana tosses the tail of her headscarf over one shoulder. Only Eva holds her gaze.

“Just,” she says, “do you _have_ to leave, Noora? London is... so far away.”

“Are you sure it is very sensible?” Sana presses.

“I love William,” Noora says firmly.

“But what about us?” Eva says, softer.

And Vilde isn’t quite sure what then happens: but then Noora reaches out and takes Eva’s hand, in the way she has taken Vilde’s, and Sana’s, and Chris’s, before, but the look she gives her is nothing like the way she has ever looked at any of them. Vilde feels her heart begin to pound very, very loudly in her chest. “I will never lose touch with any of you,” Noora says. “You are my best friends.”

Sana begrudgingly accepts this, and Chris knocks her yoghurt cup against her shoulder in a sign of thanks. But Vilde cannot bring her eyes away from their joined hands, the way Noora had spoken like she was talking to all of them but didn’t look away from Eva’s eyes once.

Vilde’s mind, unbidden, goes to the night when Eva kissed her at the bar, how Eva tasted of strawberries and vodka, how Vilde’s hands fell neatly to her waist like they were perches designed for hands to fit into.

She looks down at her drink. Her heartbeat is going very, very fast.

*

  1. **Isak and Even**



A new school year starts.

Noora is in London, and Isak, Eva’s ex-boyfriend’s friend, has moved into her room with nice gay Eskild. Eva has started hooking up with Penetrator Chris again, which Vilde thinks is very unlike Eva: she has never really understood Eva’s type, because she dated Jonas, and honestly Vilde always thought his socialist leanings were a little intense for her, but Penetrator Chris feels sort of like the beginning of a quarter-life crisis. He’s not even in _school_ any longer.

At one of Eva’s parties she catches them making out against a wall when she is trying to find her, to tell her to kick out the cute blond first-years who gate-crashed and are stealing all the male attention. They pull apart and Eva’s expression looks almost fiercely determined, like the way Vilde is sure hers looks when she goes on a run. Though she would think kissing a hot boy should be very different from running, it’s meant to be enjoyable, but Eva has her hands around his neck like she is trying to keep him pinned against her, as though she’s afraid if she lets go he’ll run away. Or she’ll run away.

Her lips are bruised red, lipgloss smudged. Vilde looks away.

Recently, her mind has been very preoccupied – it’s why she volunteered to take up the mantle of Kosegruppa once the third-years graduated, why she’s rallying up all the younger years to join, exercising more, _and_ still running the bus on top of it all. She thinks it is good to keep herself busy, it means she doesn’t waste her time thinking about frivolous things, like whether or not to get a second pudding, or even a first, or what eyeshadow would match better with this top—

Or, well. Eva’s kiss-bruised mouth.

Not that she’s thinking about that in, like, a lesbian way, of course not. It’s perfectly normal. She’s probably just projecting because she’s not currently dating, and well, she can admit that it’s a little lonely, with Chris always off with Kasper, and Eva with Penetrator Chris, or whichever boy she fancies this week, and Noora in London with William. Vilde’s allowed to admit that she misses the thrill of liking someone, how it gives her butterflies, makes her feel almost sick with it.

And, well, if she’s getting them looking at Eva, that’s no one’s business. Projection, like she said. She’s sure she read that somewhere.

*

There’s a new boy in school. He is a third-year and _very_ handsome, and Vilde’s seen him draw in a sketchbook so he’s an artist, too – how romantic – and she finds herself entertaining the idea of what it would be like. Would they hold hands? His would be bigger than hers, surely, she has small delicate hands. She fancies them one of her best features. Eva’s also got very nice hands, though, a little bigger than Vilde’s, but she’s sure they’d be very soft. That’s one thing she didn’t like about William, everything about him was rough rough rough. She half considered introducing him to some of her moisturisers, she thinks he’d benefit tremendously.

She invites the boy to Kosegruppa, because she thinks it would be good for her cred if she could get the handsome third-years in, it would certainly appeal to the younger groups – though she’s not actually sure if she’d _want_ the first-years, they have become very annoying, surely she wasn’t that annoying in her first year – and to her surprise he actually shows up. As, unexpectedly, does Isak, the boy who moved into Noora’s room. Vilde didn’t think he would: though it gets Emma Larzen to come, which she begrudgingly supposes is a bonus, even if she _is_ disrupting the social order. Next to her, Sana smirks triumphantly.

Vilde is choreographing a whole routine in her head to pair herself up with the third-year for the love exercises – imagines what it would to do her popularity! – when halfway through the meet he disappears. She frowns at this, but something knotted tight in her stomach eases. She pretends that it is not relief.

*

The new boy has garnered more than just her attention. She hears other girls talk about him in the hallway. It is all just what she expected, things she is training her internal monologue to be: _isn’t he so cute? Do you think he’s single? I wonder why he transferred_. But then the grapevine begins to turn a little sour.

There are a lot of things going around, and between the adoration it is easy to get it mixed up. But then she hears one thing that sets a stone in her stomach.

_Did you know he kissed a boy?_

She thinks of Eva.

She wonders if he meant it.

*

Then suddenly, Noora is back, and everything about the new boy escapes Vilde’s mind.

Noora has always been a private little thing, keeps everything zipped right up, buttoned up in her lipstick and shirts, but now she is more than ever: reacts to William’s name like a smack to the face. The fact he didn’t come with her is something none of them miss, though they all have the sense not to mention it. All she says about it is that they are on a break.

Vilde and Sana exchange a look. They have both heard that before.

What Vilde also doesn’t miss, however, is the way Eva’s gaze lingers on Noora: the way Noora’s lingers right back.

*

The new boy has apparently done a lot more than just a kiss a boy. And not just any boy, either: Isak.

Isak is not who Vilde expected to be gay. She thought gay boys were meant to be more... smiley. Like Eskild. In comparison, Isak’s face is set in a perpetual scowl. She only knows him sort of half-mutually through Sana and Eva, and because his dopey friend Magnus keeps hitting on her, but still, something about the idea of Isak – regular, grouchy Isak – being gay, kissing a boy, knits her stomach together.

She never thought she was homophobic: she love Eskild, and he’s gay!

But what else explains the tight feeling in her chest that makes it hard to breathe, at the thought of having it come out _publicly_ , that someone she is acquainted with is gay? Someone who will walk around school holding hands with another boy, someone who will kiss a boy not just at parties under the watchful, leering gaze of Penetrator Chris, but in the daylight, in the school yard. Whose kisses will taste of breakfast, lunch, dinner, romance, a future, instead of alcohol, and her own strawberry chapstick.

She and Eva are not the only girls who have kissed in the smudge of a bar. Vilde knows Ingrid and Sara sometimes do it.

So why does it feel like _this_?

*

Vilde throws a party at the Kollektivet at Christmas. Not very many Kosegruppa people end up coming, but she finds she doesn’t mind, because all her friends do: Chris, Eva, Sana and now Noora, who has sandwiched herself back in like she never left. Penetrator Chris is wandering around somewhere, too, and Isak has brought all of his friends as well: Eva’s ex and the other boy and Magnus, who keeps giving her looks that she is trying her hardest to ignore.

The new boy, Even, is also there.

Vilde is unsure on what ended up happening between Isak and Even. She tried to text Isak about it once but he got very rude and cagey, like, hello, it was just a question. Noora won’t tell them anything even though Vilde’s sure she knows, she _lives_ with Isak, so Vilde finds her eyes moving to them every so often. There is something knotted in her tummy whenever she sees them, probably from all the glögg, she should slow down on that.

She remembers Noora’s chides about the hypersexualisation of gay boys, which, what even, Noora, but something in the back of her mind tells her that this isn’t that. She isn’t looking at them because she wants them to kiss: in fact, she finds herself secretly hoping the opposite, that all it was was a rumour, that Emma Larzen was just jealous and spiteful. But then Isak stands from where he was sitting by Eva and meets Even by the mistletoe and kisses him, and a pit forms in her stomach.

She tries focus down on the Christmas ornament she is making, and instead her eyes accidentally snag on Noora and Eva, sat at the end of the room. Their heads are bent close together.

Under the table, they are holding hands.

Later, Magnus awkwardly corners Vilde by the tree. He has recently got a haircut that better suits his face, and his jumper is a size too big. He pokes at her cat bauble, the only Christmas decoration she brought because it’s the only one she has at home, and shoots her a nervous smile.

He is not like the other boys she has known: not like William, he is too silly for austere, serious William, with his trench coat and swoopy hair, or even like Even, who is smooth and handsome like a statue. Magnus is dorky, softer around the edges, carries himself like he is used to being the butt of the joke. Vilde is sure his mother picked out the jumper, he wouldn’t have chosen it for himself. It’s a nice colour on him. She thinks it would look nicer on Eva.

When he asks her if she wants to have sex with him, she says yes.

*

  1. **Vilde and Magnus**



It happens so slowly that if she hadn’t already been so acutely aware of it all, she would not have noticed.

Eva stops hooking up with Penetrator Chris, which they are all glad about. Vilde never liked him, he was too sleazy, and she can never get the look in his eyes after Eva pulled away from her out of her head: that heavy gaze sits in her mind like a condemnation, whenever her brain becomes treacherous and lingers too long on smiling lipsticked mouths. It falls neatly enough on the edge of Chris getting too old that no one really questions it, except her, who has honed in on every touch Chris gave to Eva like she has a sonar for it.

Noora also stops mentioning William. Vilde would say _stop_ is a generous verb, mainly because it’s not like Noora ever really started, Chris used to have to forcibly pull any information from her about it, and Noora always acted like she was having her teeth pulled, but Vilde notices that she stops reading his text messages, which she always used to do, guiltily, against her chest. She checks her phone for the time once and sees that there are ten missed messages from him, all dating different days.

Vilde remembers how she used to pounce after even once message, the minute she received it. She is sure her smile is a little thin. How they both have grown.

*

The new year comes and goes: Isak and Even are officially a couple. It stops hurting whenever Vilde looks at them, though now there is an odd longing tug instead, like a fish hook in her gut. All the girls talk about them like they are pets, but she can’t bring herself to do the same: Isak is still just rude, grouchy Isak, and she still remembers how Even showed up to her Christmas party in _sweatpants_. Besides, something about talking about them like that feels wrong, sort of.

Distantly, she wonders if everyone would be so accepting if Isak and Even were two girls. Then she dispels the idea from her brain immediately. None of that.

Besides. Now, she has Magnus.

Magnus is sweet: sweeter than she’d expected. He’s goofy, says silly things that makes everyone roll their eyes, but he is so, so kind. He holds her hand and he rubs his thumb over the inside of her palm when she is sat next to him and sends her dorky memes: which confused her at first, until she realised that it was sort of his love language. His wholehearted acceptance of life is something so enviable that she is surprised she doesn’t go green.

He tells her about his mother one day, so easily, so trusting, when she is in his room. They tried to have sex in here once, but he got all red and flustered when she took her top off and then she got red and flustered too because it feels good to be the one with the experience this time, but it is odd being looked at like an object of desire. Shyly, he asks if they can maybe go slow, and her relief is probably palpable. She puts her top back on and puts her head on his chest, and hopes he can’t see how her eyes fill with tears.

Anyway, they are in his room again when he tells her, lying on his bed, her head back on his chest, his fingers playing with her hair. Eva used to do that a lot, still does, sometimes, but now she does it more to Noora. Vilde’s chest tightens when he mentions that his mother is ill, offhanded, how that’s the reason she hasn’t met her yet, because he’d love to introduce her.

“She’s depressed right now,” he says, “so not today. Like Even!” Even has the same condition as his mother. Vilde is slowly learning the world is not so black and white. Someone crazy couldn’t be as lovely as Even; someone evil couldn’t have raised someone like Magnus. She wishes she could be as generous as Magnus is with her words, because there are times where she has not thought so kindly of her own mum. “But I’m sure she’d like you.”

There is a long pause. Vilde keeps her eyes down.

“When maybe do you think I can meet _your_ mum?” he says hesitantly.

He has blue eyes, too: like Noora, like Eva. Vilde has always been weak for blue eyes.

So she tells him about her mother in return, and he gives her a hug and he smells of soap and French fries and she laces her fingers at his back and feels her eyes fill with tears.

She has never told anyone really about her mum. She is glad it’s Magnus.

But she also feels so, so guilty, because she does not love him in the way that he loves her. In the way he deserves.

She does not want the other girls to suspect anything, because this is a shame she has been carrying with her for what feels like years and it blisters at her, so she spins them lies about all the sex she’s having. (The sex she’s _not_ having.) She tells them how good it is and how she and Magnus try all these crazy things, how many times and in how many positions, and she does it until Chris is hooting with laughter and Eva is grinning and Sana is distastefully wrinkling her nose and Noora is pink up to her ears, and she does it until she almost believes it herself, until she looks at Magnus and for a few moments can imagine what it would be like to have sex with him. He’d be sure to be gentle, even gentler than William, because he hasn’t had his first time yet, so she wouldn’t be embarrassed because he’d probably make more mistakes than she would, and she’d never laugh at Magnus. He’d probably hold her hand and compliment her underwear, and she’d maybe try and match it the first few times because she’d want it to be special for him, but then she’d stop caring because she wouldn’t feel self-conscious around Magnus.

But every time she even thinks about it, every time she imagines what it would be like, her throat closes up and she feels so scared she wants to throw up.

So instead, she just holds his hand; holds her breath.

*

It is getting easier to look at Isak and Even now. It stops feeling like her chest is caving in whenever she sees them hold hands: now it just feels numb, like it’s a string been tugged at a little too long. In the spring, they move in together, and Noora gets to have her old room back, with Eskild and Linn.

They have a girls’ sleepover, the five of them, to celebrate. There is champagne for Vilde, Eva and Chris and apple juice for Noora and Sana, and they eat chocolate and giggle about what might have happened on this mattress in the time Noora slept in Eskild’s room. Uncharacteristically, Noora tells them about what sometimes she’d hear in the early morning, or late night, through the wall, and even Sana cracks a smile.

From what it sounds like, Isak and Even are the sort to be romantic. Vilde would not be surprised if they held hands the entire time and stared into each other’s eyes.

On the topic of romance, Eva asks her about Magnus.

“Magnus?” Vilde says, stupidly.

“Yes, your boyfriend,” Eva says. “Unless you know another Magnus?”

Vilde’s a bit drunk, she thinks. “No, just the one.”

“How are you two doing?”

Vilde forces herself to look away from her wide, smiling mouth. “We’re good,” she says. It’s not a lie. Guilt festers under her skin.

“That’s good,” Eva says. “I’m glad you’re happy, Vilde.”

Vilde has a good life. She has a boyfriend who treats her well, she has the best friends in the world, she is doing well in school. She met Magnus’s mum last week, and she kissed her on both cheeks and said that he had done a good job, and when she was going home his mum gave her the leftovers in a Tupperware for her own mum, and Vilde didn’t know how to say thank you because she hadn’t managed to scrounge up enough money to pay for the gas bill, so the oven wasn’t working and the three ready-meals she had barely afforded had spoiled.

She has every reason to be happy.

But she’s not. And she knows why.

*

  1. **Eva and Noora**



It feels like a long time coming when Magnus says, “Do you want to break up?”

They are back on his bed, but they are not lying down, they are sitting cross-legged across from each other. Their knees are inches away from each other, but they may as well be oceans. His hair is flopping over his kind, gentle face: he has gotten it cut again, he looks like the nervous boy all those months ago at the Christmas party.

Vilde feels so divorced from that time, though she knows she’s not that really. Not that much has changed. Including Magnus: he is still a virgin.

How ironic.

Her heart still falls in her chest. “What do you mean?”

He smiles, wryly. His face is sad. “Do you want to break up, Vilde?”

“Of course not,” she says. It feels automated.

“Please don’t lie to me.” There are tears in his eyes; hers, too.

Her throat is thick. “I... I’m not.”

“You have always looked like there was something missing,” he says. “Like you were hoping for someone else.”

“It’s not you,” she says, because he has to know. It’s not his fault. It’s hers.

Always her fault.

“If you weren’t happy why didn’t you just say?”

“Magnus—”

“Please, Vilde, just—”

“I think I’m gay.”

It comes out like a bullet from the barrel of a gun. His go very wide. Hers do, too, probably. She didn’t mean for it to come out. Her heartbeat is somewhere in her ears.

Then he bridges the ocean and takes her hand, and finally the tears come: for this kind, lovely, silly boy whose heart she has just broken. For herself. She puts her forehead on his shoulder and she cries, and he holds her and tells her it’s okay.

She feels like she has just ripped herself open. But, for the first time, something deep in her chest eases.

*

There is a rumour going around, that Eva and Noora are together.

Vilde first hears this on a phone call with Chris, which the two of them aim to do at least once a week. Chris always said it was to keep the relationship alive, like they were an old married couple, and then she’d wink, and Vilde would laugh, because through everything Chris was always who she could lean on to feel better. They are reminiscing about first year, and somehow Isak has come up, how Chris used to fellate every spoon around him to get his attention. It feels so funny, now: and maybe a little too close for comfort.

Then Chris says, “Although, did you hear? It’s Noora and Eva this time.”

For a moment, Vilde doesn’t understand what ‘this time’ means. Has Chris been sucking spoons around Noora and Eva? Then Chris says, “How funny is that!” and Vilde realises that it’s not that, it’s Noora and Eva who are apparently gay.

She doesn’t say anything. She lets Chris laugh it out, and then listens to her move on to talk about a boy she met online. All the while, Vilde’s heart is hammering.

Thing is, she thinks she has known this for a while. It is getting harder to deny: especially now that Eva and Noora have started holding hands. She doesn’t think Chris ever noticed, she was in mourning after Kasper broke up with her, but Sana must’ve, she is too smart not to. Vilde wonders if she will say anything, but she doesn’t, which is strangely comforting.

Eva and Noora hold hands whenever they think people can’t see. Under the table, in pockets, brushing fingers together. They are hardly being very secretive, Vilde is certain Eva is not left-handed like she insists, there is a reason her right is always suspiciously MIA, but she also knows the reason she is hoarding all these moments is another thing in itself. Everyone sees them hold hands in Spanish: but only Vilde sees their pinkies brush, the way they smile at each other a second too long, because she can’t look away.

But she knows that whatever it was, it has changed.

She is not the girl who slept with William. She is not even the girl who tried to sleep with Magnus. She remembers Eva’s kiss, not vividly, more as an abstraction, because it has been a while since she thought about it. She used to covet every time Noora and Eva so much as even brushed against each other, a by-product or some form of residue from the kiss, the first time a girl had ever kissed her.

Now she does it because the space between their hands is the only space looking at, she feels as though she can breathe: because it is not just her.

She is not alone.

*

They never announce it, not officially. But then covert hand-holding becomes public, fingers interlaced in the park, legs casually slung over each other when they are sitting down. Eva touches Noora’s hair with a reverence Vilde can only remember seeing on her with Jonas, and Noora smiles at her like she never smiled at William. Chris finally catches on, but none of them say anything: because it does not have to be a big thing.

At graduation, when they are all drained from russ, throat scratched raw from shouting and singing and drinking, eyes sore from having slept three hours total over the past week, the alcohol levels in her bloodstream probably ungodly, Vilde see them kiss for the first time, and Chris cheers and pops the last of the confetti cannons. She suspects she had been reserving it for this moment all along. Sana clasps her hand like a proud mother, and Vilde:

Vilde hugs them both, tightly, dearly. These are her girls. She loves them like she has never loved anyone else. She pulls back and holds both their faces between her hands and say, “Thank you.”

They don’t say what for, because she thinks that they already know.

The rabbiting in her heart that started from the very first moment she saw William across the courtyard slows.

*

**+1: Vilde and herself**

They are in a club. Chris is at the bar drunkenly trying to impress the bartender with a magic trick; Sana is talking to Even, who has Isak plastered to his side like a koala; Noora and Eva are on the dance floor. Vilde has a drink in her hand, and both feet on the ground.

Across the room, a pretty girl with dark hair catches her eye. She raises an eyebrow at her: an invitation.

Vilde finishes her drink, and makes her way over.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](https://smileymikey.tumblr.com/m)


End file.
